What is DeepSeek? Everything you need to know about the new ChatGPT rival that’s taken the App Store by storm

Despite being in development for a few years, DeepSeek seems to have arrived almost overnight after the release of its R1 model on Jan 20 took the AI world by storm, mainly because it offers performance that competes with ChatGPT-o1 without charging you to use it. Its app is currently number one on the iPhone’s App Store as a result of its instant popularity.

DeepSeek is a Chinese-owned AI startup and has developed its latest LLMs (called DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1) to be on a par with rivals ChatGPT-4o and ChatGPT-o1 while costing a fraction of the price for its API connections. And because of the way it works, DeepSeek uses far less computing power to process queries.

Some security experts have expressed concern about data privacy when using DeepSeek since it is a Chinese company. Obviously, given the recent legal controversy surrounding TikTok, there are concerns that any data it captures could fall into the hands of the Chinese state.

What is DeepSeek?

DeepSeek is the name of the Chinese startup that created the DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1 LLMs, which was founded in May 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, an influential figure in the hedge fund and AI industries.

The first DeepSeek product was DeepSeek Coder, released in November 2023. DeepSeek-V2 followed in May 2024 with an aggressively-cheap pricing plan that caused disruption in the Chinese AI market, forcing rivals to lower their prices.

The company’s current LLM models are DeepSeek-V3 and DeepSeek-R1. Both have impressive benchmarks compared to their rivals but use significantly fewer resources because of the way the LLMs have been created. DeepSeek-V3 is a general-purpose model, while DeepSeek-R1 focuses on reasoning tasks.

DeepSeek has been able to develop LLMs rapidly by using an innovative training process that relies on trial and error to self-improve. So, in essence, DeepSeek’s LLM models learn in a way that’s similar to human learning, by receiving feedback based on their actions. They also utilize a MoE (Mixture-of-Experts) architecture, so they activate only a small fraction of their parameters at a given time, which significantly reduces the computational cost and makes them more efficient.

To use DeepSeek as a chatbot you can simply head over to DeepSeek.com and click on Start Now. You’ll need to create an account to use it, but you can login with your Google account if you like.

Alternatively, you can download the DeepSeek app for iOS or Android, and use the chatbot on your smartphone.

DeepSeek price: how much is it and can you get a subscription?

You don’t need to subscribe to DeepSeek because, in its chatbot form at least, it’s free to use. The DeepSeek chatbot defaults to using the DeepSeek-V3 model, but you can switch to its R1 model at any time, by simply clicking, or tapping, the ‘DeepThink (R1)’ button beneath the prompt bar.

If you want to use DeepSeek more professionally and use the APIs to connect to DeepSeek for tasks like coding in the background then there is a charge. Currently, it is just $0.55 per mission input tokens and $2.19 per million output tokens. This compares very favorably to OpenAI’s API, which costs $15 and $60.

DeepSeek and ChatGPT: what are the main differences?

While its LLM may be super-powered, DeepSeek appears to be pretty basic in comparison to its rivals when it comes to features. In terms of chatting to the chatbot, it’s exactly the same as using ChatGPT – you simply type something into the prompt bar, like “Tell me about the Stoics” and you’ll get an answer, which you can then expand with follow-up prompts, like “Explain that to me like I’m a 6-year old”. The answers you’ll get from the two chatbots are very similar.

What you’ll notice most is that DeepSeek is limited by not containing all the extras you get withChatGPT. For instance, you’ll notice that you can’t generate AI images or video using DeepSeek and you don’t get any of the tools that ChatGPT offers, like Canvas or the ability to interact with customized GPTs like “Insta Guru” and “DesignerGPT”.

If you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber then there are a variety of LLMs you can choose when using ChatGPT. In DeepSeek you just have two – DeepSeek-V3 is the default and if you want to use its advanced reasoning model you have to tap or click the ‘DeepThink (R1)’ button before entering your prompt.

There are also fewer options in the settings to customize in DeepSeek, so it is not as easy to fine-tune your responses. In short, DeepSeek feels very much like ChatGPT without all the bells and whistles.

One of the best features of ChatGPT is its ChatGPT search feature, which was recently made available to everybody in the free tier to use. This allows you to search the web using its conversational approach. DeepSeek also features a Search feature that works in exactly the same way as ChatGPT’s.

Finally, you can upload images in DeepSeek, but only to extract text from them. ChatGPT on the other hand is multi-modal, so it can upload an image and answer any questions about it you may have.

DeepSeek search and ChatGPT search: what are the main differences?

AI search is one of the coolest uses of an AI chatbot we’ve seen so far. It enables you to search the web using the same sort of conversational prompts that you normally engage a chatbot with.

Just like ChatGPT, DeepSeek has a search feature built right into its chatbot. Just tap the Search button (or click it if you are using the web version) and then whatever prompt you type in becomes a web search. It couldn’t get any easier to use than that, really.

Once you’ve performed your search, say for Pizza restaurants in your city, you can ask follow-up questions, like “From those, if you had to choose one restaurant, which one would it be?”

DeepSeek will respond to your question by recommending a single restaurant, and state its reasons. It’s this ability to follow up the initial search with more questions, as if were a real conversation, that makes AI searching tools particularly useful.

Both ChatGPT and DeepSeek enable you to click to view the source of a particular recommendation, however, ChatGPT does a better job of organizing all its sources to make them easier to reference, and when you click on one it opens the Citations sidebar for easy access. In contrast, DeepSeek is a bit more basic in the way it delivers search results.

How to use DeepSeek-R1 for deeper reasoning

DeepSeek-R1 is an advanced reasoning model, which is on a par with the ChatGPT-o1 model. These models are better at math questions and questions that require deeper thought, so they usually take longer to answer, however they will present their reasoning in a more accessible fashion.

To use R1 in the DeepSeek chatbot you simply press (or tap if you are on mobile) the ‘DeepThink(R1)’ button before entering your prompt. The button is on the prompt bar, next to the Search button, and is highlighted when selected.

When you ask your question you’ll notice that it will be slower answering than normal, you’ll also notice that it appears as if DeepSeek is having a conversation with itself before it delivers its answer. That is so you can see the reasoning process that it went through to deliver it. It’s quite fascinating!

How to switch to DeepSeek from ChatGPT

One thing to bear in mind before dropping ChatGPT for DeepSeek is that you won’t have the ability to upload images for analysis, generate images or use some of the breakout tools like Canvas that set ChatGPT apart.

If all you want to do is ask questions of an AI chatbot, generate code or extract text from images, then you’ll find that currently DeepSeek would seem to satisfy all your needs without charging you anything.

We also found that we got the occasional “high demand” message from DeepSeek that resulted in our query failing. However, DeepSeek is currently completely free to use as a chatbot on mobile and on the web, and that’s a great advantage for it to have.

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